Washington attacks French scouting party, May 28, 1754

On this day in 1754, George Washington, a 22-year-old lieutenant colonel in the British Army and the nation’s future first president, led an attack on French forces at Jumonville Glen, near present-day Pittsburgh.

Historians credit the battle as the opening salvo in the French and Indian War, which lasted until 1763. It ultimately limited French influence in the Western Hemisphere, while testing the bonds of the British Empire in America.

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The Ohio Valley had long been contested territory among French Canadians, various Indian groups and the British colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia. When the French began building fortifications along the Ohio River and refused Virginia’s demand that they leave, Virginia Gov. Robert Dinwiddie sent Washington to defend “Fort Necessity” at the forks of the river.

On his arrival, Washington found that a scouting party led by Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, a French Canadian ensign, was nearby. Fearing that Jumonville planned an attack, Washington struck first, ambushing the small party.

In one of history’s murkier episodes, Washington’s American Indian ally, Tanaghrisson, killed Jumonville, while the monolingual Washington sought to interrogate the French-speaking officer.

Jumonville’s murder in captivity enraged the French. Washington proved unable to defend his makeshift fort from superior French forces led by Jumonville’s half-brother. He surrendered on July 4 and confessed to murdering Jumonville, signing a document in French, which he couldn’t read.

Earlier that month, in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin had drafted his Albany Plan for Union, in hopes that united colonies could better orchestrate their own defense and governance. Colonists voted down the proposal everywhere it was presented.

In the aftermath of the skirmish, Washington resigned his commission and returned to his Mount Vernon plantation. In 1775, he re-entered military service to lead the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War.